Finding the Joy

When I first finished my first full (and thorough) playthrough of Fallout 4 I was only semi-impressed with the latest game in post-apocalyptic RPG series.  Lately I've had an urge to re-visit the Commonwealth and right the wrongs of my first adventure.  I haven't purchased any of the new DLC (I will wait till it goes on sale...DLC is pricey!) so this adventure is largely similar to my first go-round.  I've decided to do a few things different this time--things like siding with the Brotherhood of Steel rather than the Railroad and rolling a character who is melee focused rather than the sneak n' snipe from game numero uno.  As I find myself getting bored...again...I am trying to focus on the things I enjoy about the sprawling worlds created by Bethesda.

Even though I have always found many of the quests in Fallout 4 to be minimally engaging, I have always enjoyed the fact that each location has it's own unique story.  Whether you are stumbling through a raider camp or picking your way through a destroyed office building, there is a fascinating story about the people/mutants/ghouls/? that inhabit the area.  I recently finished a simple quest that found me returning an overdue book to the Boston Public Library for the friendly ghoul storekeeper in Goodneighbor.  Daisy's book was 200 years overdue and desperately needed to be returned.  She also had fond memories of the library and hoped that you could clear out all the pesky supermutants that had taken up residence there.  After slashing through a pile of supermutants and aggressive Protectrons you reach the back room of the library and learn that a desperate group of staffers had been trying to record as much of the information as they could before it was all destroyed.  They had fought off the supermutants until the last man had been killed.  The story unfolds as you hack into computer terminals throughout the building and eventually find the body of the last librarian.  These small stories make exploration just a little bit more interesting.

The Fallout series has always had a certain sense of quirky charm.  The original games were filled with goofy easter eggs and the occasional strange encounter.  Fallout 4 continues this trend by including those few strange encounters.  Maybe you're casually exploring the bathroom of a ruined building...you never know what might be hidden behind a closed stall door--it could be a ghoul, or it could be a teddy bear wearing glasses and smoking a cigar.  Or maybe it's a body stuffed into a basketball hoop--those raiders must play by different rules.

What is it with raiders and mannequins?
This quirky scene helped me increase my hacking skills.

The biggest highlight of the games for me are the numerous (like the stars!) items that are scattered throughout the map.  You might find a suitcase in the back of the burnt out shell of a vehicle in the middle of nowhere or loot 25 coffee cups from an abandoned diner.  I don't think I've encountered another game with the sheer volume of items that are contained in Fallout 4.  Thanks to the settlement system looting all that junk is finally rewarding.

Maybe someday I will add-on a few of the more worthy DLC.  Until then, I'm focusing on the small things between bouts of Fallout 4 boredom.  More teddy bears wearing glasses, please.